For those of you that follow my instagram stories, you know that I’ve been dealing with knee issues for almost a year. I had a meniscus tear back in 2016 from going too heavy on calf raises (I’m not joking) and even after therapy there’s always a nagging pain that comes and goes. After a few months of not being able to work on my legs at all I can finally say I’m getting ma knees back!

This workout may not apply to everyone but if you’re dealing with knee issues this will put the least amount of stress on the joints and strengthen your glutes, which in turn will support your knees in the future.

Now, for an explanation of the workout:

For the Single Leg, Leg Press you want to keep the momentum going and not rest until you finish all 5 sets. Since it is a single leg movement, the other leg is always resting so no need to rest even more than that. The amount of weight you should use depends on your strength level and health. The range of motion is also going to depend on how your knee is, the lower you go the more pressure you’ll put on the patella so play around with it. If you feel a certain way for not doing the full range of motion, put your ego aside and fix yo damn self. Slow down the movement and if you have to, keep the lock on so you’re literally doing a few inches of movement. If you go slow enough it’s gonna burn, find your sweet spot of muscle pain but not joint pain.

Romanian Deadlift, this is perfect for anyone with knee issues since there is no flexion of the knee. Make sure to test out the waters by doing 1-3 reps with the weight and check if you have any pain. If you do, then drop the weight or move on to the next exercise. Like always, your back needs to be straight, your shoulders in your back pockets, arms locked, and aim your hips to the wall behind you.

Barbell Hip Thrusters (with band): Warning* these mofos hurt, a lot** The band that I used here was a large blue hip-circle band from Slingshot. The reason for the band is, so you don’t have to go too heavy but by pushing out against the band you activate your glutes even more. I used 135 lbs (which is not much) but my future kids definitely felt it. Put the band right above the knees and push through the heels. These are perhaps the best booty building exercise on earth, and should be used by everyone with back pain, knee pain, and a flat booty (aka me).

Adductor Machine, or also known as the good girl machine. Stay relatively heavy but not so much that you can’t do all 20 reps. Increase the weight every set or slow down and pause at the top of the movement. Rest time should be no more than 45 seconds in between.

Leg Curl into Banded Glute Bridges for a total of 4 super sets. For the leg curl, I did 2 sets that counted as 1 set followed by 10 reps then increase the weight and do another 5-10 reps. I did this because if I go too heavy on leg curls my knee starts acting up, so for this particular exercise I leave an extra 1 or 2 reps in the tank and don’t reach failure. I find this works really well for me, I’m getting enough volume to grow but I’m not hurting my joints in the process. Then jump straight into 50 reps of glute bridges (if you try this, please record your reaction afterwards 🙂 and send it to me)

Kettlebell Swings: 10 min of 45 sec on, 15 sec off. Make sure your form is impeccable for this one, if you do this wrong you could seriously mess yourself up. Think of a deadlift not a squat, and the kettlebell should not go past your shoulders as it comes up. I will make a post on the swings eventually but in the meantime, look this How to do kettlebell swings so you learn how to do it properly.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it or think it may help someone else out, please spread the word.

If you have any questions please let me know in the comments or you can head over to the contact me section and shoot me an email.